Are mastery and ability goals both adaptive? Evaluation, initial goal construction and the quality of task engagement

The aims of this research were to examine the predictions that (a) the kind of evaluation pupils anticipate will influence their initial achievement goals and, as a result, the quality and consequences of task engagement; and (b) initial mastery goals will promote new learning and intrinsic motivation and initial ability goals will promote entity beliefs that ability is fixed.

Participants were 312 secondary school pupils at ages 13-15.

Pupils expected to receive normative evaluation, temporal evaluation (scores over time) or no evaluation. Mastery and ability goals were measured before pupils worked on challenging problems; intrinsic motivation and entity beliefs were measured after task completion.

Anticipation of temporal evaluation enhanced initial mastery goals, anticipation of normative evaluation enhanced ability goals and the no-evaluation condition undermined both. Anticipation of temporal evaluation enhanced new learning (strategy acquisition and performance gains) and intrinsic motivation both directly and by enhancing initial mastery goals; anticipation of normative evaluation enhanced entity beliefs by enhancing ability goals.

Results confirmed that evaluation conveys potent cues as to the goals of activity. They also challenged claims that both mastery and ability goals can be adaptive by demonstrating that these were differentially associated with positive versus negative processes and outcomes. Results have theoretical and applied implications for understanding and improving evaluative practices and student motivation.